A measured but engrossing tale of a tightknit community’s strength.
In this debut novel, a world traveler visits an island off the U.S. coast and mingles in good—as well as dangerous—company.
Globe-trotting Judah Goodwin’s latest destination is the United States. But the ship he’s on drops him off at, as the helmsman puts it, “Almost America”—the small island Rio Los Angeles sitting somewhere between Nova Scotia and Maine. Judah, a kind, capable man, quickly befriends the islanders, especially when he helps prevent a house from tipping and sliding into the ocean. Rio Los Angeles has a rich history, as some families have lived there for generations. This includes the Mirandas and the Eldridges, who share a bit of bad blood stemming from a fatal car accident more than a decade ago. Judah grows close to local sheriff Lee Miranda and even joins her profitable “quahog project.” Many islanders band together to harvest these quahogs, large clams that will spruce up anyone’s clam chowder. Sadly, not everyone on the island is neighborly, as three strangers make their way there and seem dead set on ransacking underwater quahog pens. These abrasive men also prove violent toward locals, forcing Lee and others to track them down as swiftly as possible. Meanwhile, Judah learns the ship that left him at the island has sunk with apparently no survivors. This news sparks his memories of the captain, who not only was up to no good, but may have used him as an unwitting courier for looted goods. It’s not long before a menacing individual comes looking for whatever Judah has.
Kent’s leisurely paced story devotes pages to work on the island. Characters, for example, discuss the quahog project and a later plan to harvest sea salt. Other scenes describe the laborious process of digging, packaging, and hauling clams. Many of the details, however, give the narrative color, including the stories that Judah and the islanders trade. He tells of his global travels, from the daily catches of fishing communities in Tanzania, East Africa, to a vault for storing seeds of worldly food crops on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. This is moreover indicative of the author’s sharp prose. Scenes at sea are particularly strong, even with minimal context for readers unfamiliar with nautical terminology: “They rafted the skiff to the Lydia. There was a mismatch in height and there were swells in the current. But foam rubber fenders hanging from Lydia’s gunwale cushioned a rhythmic bumping of the vessels.” While there’s little in the way of individual character development, certain moments pack a punch; a woman endures and recovers from a vicious assault, and more than one islander dies, deaths that unquestionably affect the community. At the same time, potential romance between Judah and Lee is sublimely understated; she calls him Chesapeake (a nod to Judah’s home), an endearing name that only Lee uses. Most of the Rio Los Angeles locals, too, are accommodating; Judah fits in so well with the rest of the cast that one may think the world traveler is not merely visiting but there to stay.
A measured but engrossing tale of a tightknit community’s strength.Pub Date: June 30, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Luminare Press
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one...
An inordinately moving, electric exploration of two warring cultures fused in love, focused on the lives of four Chinese women—who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco—and their very American 30-ish daughters.
Tan probes the tension of love and often angry bewilderment as the older women watch their daughters "as from another shore," and the daughters struggle to free themselves from maddening threads of arcane obligation. More than the gap between generations, more than the dwindling of old ways, the Chinese mothers most fear that their own hopes and truths—the secret gardens of the spirit that they have cultivated in the very worst of times—will not take root. A Chinese mother's responsibility here is to "give [my daughter] my spirit." The Joy Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. There, in the stench of starvation and death, four women told their "good stories," tried their luck with mah-jongg, laughed, and "feasted" on scraps. Should we, thought Suyuan, "wait for death or choose our own happiness?" Now, the Chinese women in America tell their stories (but not to their daughters or to one another): in China, an unwilling bride uses her wits, learns that she is "strong. . .like the wind"; another witnesses the suicide of her mother; and there are tales of terror, humiliation and despair. One recognizes fate but survives. But what of the American daughters—in turn grieved, furious, exasperated, amused ("You can't ever tell a Chinese mother to shut up")? The daughters, in their confessional chapters, have attempted childhood rebellions—like the young chess champion; ever on maternal display, who learned that wiles of the chessboard did not apply when opposing Mother, who had warned her: "Strongest wind cannot be seen." Other daughters—in adulthood, in crises, and drifting or upscale life-styles—tilt with mothers, one of whom wonders: "How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?"
With lantern-lit tales of old China, a rich humanity, and an acute ear for bicultural tuning, a splendid first novel—one that matches the vigor and sensitivity of Maxine Hong Kingston (The Warrior Woman, 1976; China Men, 1980) in her tributes to the abundant heritage of Chinese-Americans.Pub Date: March 22, 1989
ISBN: 0143038095
Page Count: -
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1989
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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